November 2026 SAT First Reactions
Hello MJTP families, students, and educators. I'm corresponding after the November 7th SAT this morning. If you're on the West Coast, you might still be in the thick of it.
November 7: Same Test, Different Order
Today was the November 7 SAT, my seventh sitting of the year. Here are my reflections: Was it different from the other six? Sure, but only in context. Every vocab word on today's test came from our official SAT vocab trends list, so if you studied those words here or on The Gauntlet, you were prepared.
The same question patterns from recent tests showed up again, too, though the number of questions from each skill and domain shifted around.
This is normal! Don't pay attention to Social Media "rat poison," as I like to call it. No matter what an SAT "guru" on Tiktok tells you, today's test was not harder than any other test you've taken. I would know. I've sat for 12 of them in the past two years.
Why I Preach the Marathon
This is exactly why I preach against the "one and done" mentality. A marathon approach gives you repeated exposure to the same questions, words, and patterns. Parents and students who pressure themselves to take one test and be done with it are handicapping themselves with anxiety and limited exposure to the test.
There's a lot of chatter that taking the SAT too many times hurts you in admissions. I disagree. I've seen students who tested multiple times get into the best universities in the country, and none of them carried an "I must succeed by this date or I'm doomed" mentality.
That doesn't mean you should study nonchalantly. As I tell all my students, have a sense of urgency and a purpose behind your progress and your process, but not to the detriment of your overall outcome.
October PSAT: A Tale of Two Sections
PSAT/NMSQT scores should be in for nearly everyone by now. College Board released them in three waves this fall (October 22, November 5, and November 12), depending on when your school submitted its tests. If you're still waiting, you should have yours by Thursday. Once you do, share your score with me!
I've had several students report perfect 760s in Math. Congrats to all of them! The Reading and Writing scores are high, too, but there's still a disparity (great SAT word, by the way) between the two sections. That gap shows how much harder the RW section is to max out than Math. It's also why RW carries so much weight for National Merit. The Selection Index counts your RW score twice and your Math score once, so every 10 points you gain in RW is worth 2 index points, while 10 points in Math is worth only 1.
How Did You Feel?
I'd love to hear how today went. Did you feel prepared? If not, the December 5 SAT is right around the corner, and it's a fantastic opportunity to keep your momentum going before the long lull until the March 6 test. The regular registration deadline is November 20, and the late deadline is November 24. Your November scores come out on November 20, so if you're leaning toward December, don't wait on your scores to register.
Gauntlet Updates
The Gauntlet's student experience just got a major upgrade. You can now build your own flashcard sets from our high-frequency vocab sets, and we'll be adding the October and November SAT/PSAT vocab words to them soon. If you're a tutor, you can assign these sets to your students as well. It's all free!
Mr. John
